Natural Capital Accounting

Governance for resource efficiency is required to move society as whole towards this objective. New ways of measuring, monitoring and informing the value-chain (including consumers) are one way to stimulate efficient use of resources.

The importance of information collected through standardized methods is not new. In the environmental domain tools like Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) are generally accepted ways to measure, quantify and community environmental impact. Since LCA is first and foremost an environmental tool, it is not the most suitable to identify how production process impact upon ecosystems and ecosystem services.

In comes the concept of Natural Capital. Governments and businesses increasingly look at this concept to identify, measure and quantify the impact of a production process, a business or entire sector on the worlds ecosystems. The Natural Capital Protocol is designed as a tool to identify and quantify relations between products, production processes and Natural Capital. It describes the process to make this relations discussable and describes how to quantify impact.

Natural Capital Accounting is a promising tool to make the impact of products and production processes visible, contributing to more sustainable use of natural resources. The objective of this project is to liaise with the Natural Capital Coalition, to identify opportunities for cooperation and to formulate a Strategic Research Agenda.

To reach this objective in short time, and as efficient as possible, it is suggested to do secondary analysis of available information and discuss this with stakeholders.